Corbyn must stand up to antisemitism

Labour leader will have to work hard to regain the political limelight over issue seized by his deputy

Have the wheels on the Jeremy Corbyn express begun to loosen? The leader of the Labour Party may enjoy the support of fiercely loyal members, but his reputation among the wider electorate continues to take a beating.

Labour’s catastrophically incompetent handing of allegations of antisemitism levelled against party members has ground away at its credibility for months. Now Corbyn’s deputy, Tom Watson, openly challenges his leader on the issue. Make no mistake, Watson’s request that members making complaints about antisemitism should copy him into any correspondence is a direct challenge to both the authority and competence of Corbyn.

A furious response from Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby – an ally of Corbyn’s – in which she raised entirely unconvincing concerns about data protection did nothing but add to the impression that Labour is resistant to taking serious action over antisemitism.

Watson has provided some leadership on this issue when Corbyn most assuredly has not. Over the weekend, Labour’s deputy leader made it clear that he is ready to exert as much pressure on Corbyn as he feels is necessary. Responding to a report suggesting there had been political pressure to go easy on Labour members accused of antisemitism, Watson tweeted: “For too long our processes for dealing with racism and abuse have failed. If correct, this story suggests unacceptable political interference in dealing with antisemitism cases.”

Corbyn should be in no doubt that his deputy was addressing him personally. When Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015 he did so on a wave of support from hundreds of thousands of new members. But among those hordes of idealists were sections of the hard left for whom antisemitic conspiracy theories constitute a legitimate world view. These chickens have come home and are roosting, messily.

Corbyn must try to regain the political momentum snatched away from him by Watson. How he will achieve this is not entirely clear. Watson has clearly decided he need no longer pretend to respect his leader’s judgment and while he continues to lead the Labour fight against antisemitism, Corbyn will find it difficult to stop him stealing the political limelight.

Any attempt by Corbyn to silence Watson on the subject will only feed the suspicion that the leader doesn’t truly care about the problem.